Yes, please tell us how Britain will gain by leaving the EU and how you as a British person resident in France will have your life enhanced by the same. I would also like to hear any one of the EU rules that has adversely affected you as an individual. I really am looking forward to your reply as not one leave voter that I’ve ever asked has produced an accurate or convincing answer. Thank you for your contribution to this thread.
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Indeed, it does seem to have added some carborundum to help sharpen our mattocks and pitchforks!
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It is closed - hence the subject of this thread is not brexit, but ‘Breturn’.
That the UK will go back into the EU is obvious (for the reasons I gave earlier - the inevitable growth of regional, and decline of global trade) - it’s just a question of when, isn’t it?
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In the sense that we have left and the transition period will end (as things stand) on Dec 31 2020 - yes, the issue of Brexit is closed, the instruction given (questionably) by the UK population to their government in 2016 has been discharged. There is no going back, no U-turn, no extension available.
But Brexit itself is only just starting - we have no agreed deal covering our relationship with the EU, Johnson has berated business for not being prepared but you can’t be prepared for a trading environment which is yet to be defined. It turns out that the German car manufacturers did not ride to our aid and are unlikely to appear over the hill at the last minute to rescue the UK economy. We do not hold all the cards, the EU does not need us more than we need them and we have a government of sycophants blindly following Johnson, Cummings and Gove - and all of this at a time of global pandemic which, alone, is wrecking the economy. To add Brexit on top of all that is utter madness, but we are hell bent on doing it anyway.
That Freudian slip of Rees-Mogg was probably about right - I can see it taking 50 years to undo the damage we have done to ourselves.
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You may well be right on that point Geof, but does it not presuppose that the current environment of the pursuit of economic wealth above all else remains the goal that people are encouraged to aspire to ?
I find it interesting how the Covid crisis seems to be changing the rules of governmental economics. Previously there was seemingly no money with which to improve the NHS, yet now there are billions available. Governments all over the world are ‘borrowing’ billions, and in the case of the USA it’s trillions, so one wonders from whom all this wealth is being ‘borrowed’ ---- the Martians ? Let’s face it, all this so called borrowing is just imaginary.
Perhaps the pandemic will bring about a realisation that there are more important things in life than monetary wealth such as health, happiness, equality, and self-governance, and that when such an awakening does occur, then the question of whether to be in or out of any particular trading bloc in relation solely to economic one upmanship simply becomes irrelevant.
But Robert the money has to come from somewhere and being Billy no mates the poor and lonely boy in world trade is going to hurt for generations. Perhaps you don’t have children and grandchildren to worry about but the future that they are being offered is a lot worse than it was just over four years ago. Covid has compounded the problems not made them go away.
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I would dearly like this to be the case - and even held the same view initially, well, for about a femtosecond, then I came to my senses.
Hi David,
Actually I do have adult children who also came to the determination (without any input from me) that the UK would be best served by leaving the EU, not so much because of what it is now, but because of what they see it becoming.
Perhaps what Covid has done is illuminate the fact that governments can just ‘imagine’ some more money into being at any time they wish to do so without there seemingly being much adverse consequence. My point is to question the validity of the concept that economic factors must always drive us forwards. Greed is still a sin is it not ?
By the way; To answer your earlier question I tend to read either the Washington Post, USA Today, or the Daily Telegraph (when I can obtain it), depending on where I happen to be at the time.
Why do you say that Paul ?
Why follow a sort of mantra based on “I’m all right Jack” when you know in your heart that it is wrong. Perhaps we should all look around us and open our eyes to the poverty, inequality, and injustice right on our own doorstep that is the product of unbridled capitalism and ask ourselves whether this is really correct and humanitarian.
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Why do people rise to the likes of Mr Lane, if he is ignored he’ll get bored and go away.
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If you can’t see the importance of a country being financially stable something is very wrong.
Your political position seems to support the very people whose basic concepts encourage inequality. I don’t think you understand what you are saying.
All I know is that the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg and Richard Tice are getting richer, and me and my family are getting poorer, have less control, and reduced rights.
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Er…, because I briefly harboured the hope that forced to slow down and reflect on what really matters people might realise that ultimately they are the hamsters in an economic wheel driven by consumerism and that running ever faster to buy the latest gadget just to fill the pockets of the already wealthy is not sustainable in the long term.
Sadly it was not long before I realised this isn’t going to happen.
Sorry, where did I say that?
Nice thought, but really can’t see that happening. Idealism always ends in compromise in my experience - the degree of the compromise is what one or the other deems acceptable / expedient to each of them at any given time.
I saw a nice catchline quote with respect to current announced borrowing on German TV on Saturday morning - “irgendwer irgendwo zahlt immer” - that imaginary debt always get called in somewhere along the line, and usually it is the taxpayer that foots the bill, whether it be the current generation, or future generations.
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I share many of your feelings on this Robert - I do believe the future will be more local - small scale domestic energy generation. return of preference for local, seasonal food, long supply chains for spare parts replaced by 3D printing, etc, etc… and I think - hope - that part of these change processes will be more of a focus on quality of life - family, community, relationships, etc - than on consuming commercial products and services.
But I don’t believe international trade and travel will disappear altogether - they predate capitalism and the consumer society and will surely survive it - but without fossil fuels it will be - has to be - much more limited to close neighbouring countries.
By the way, I think what the economics of the pandemic have exposed is the false analogy UK Tories and other conservatives tried to draw between national and household finances (‘handbag economics’).
This analogy is patently false if you think about it for 2 minutes, because:
when a household spends money, that money passes out of the household - but when a nation (with its own currency) ‘spends’ money it just gets re-circulated within the nation (unless/until it gets converted into another currency); and
households can’t create money out of nothing - but banks, including central or state-owned banks can - and do - all the time.
so tell me; if that is the case, why did the Conservatives keep everyone in the UK under the auspices of austerity for 10 years whilst at the same time laughing at the spending plans of the opposition?
And of course the myth that ‘wealth’ is created in the private sector and the taxes from that ‘pay for’ public services - whereas in fact the relationship is almost entirely the other way up: teachers, nurses, refuse collectors, bus drivers, etc, etc, create most of the things that really matter in our lives - and pay a lot of the taxes - and these ‘externalities’ enable businesses to make profits.
Dishonesty?